[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Since Nietzsche believed that most of the human being s concep-tual constructions function primarily to serve the interests of thehuman being per se, he hesitated to advance theories of the cosmosthat involve superimpositions of human qualities onto the universeas a whole.Like Xenophanes, he resisted anthropomorphic inter-pretations of the world, especially when they are used to reflectsome absolute, definitive truth.Such anthropomorphic interpreta-tions, upon becoming absolute and accepted as eternally true,become the  shadows of God in the first sense described above.Nietzsche accentuated how self-centered human beings actually are,and how illusory some of their ideas can become:The human being, the Thespian of the world. & Perhaps the ant inthe forest imagines that it is the goal and purpose of the forest s exis-tence, just as strongly as we, in our fantasy, take the final point of66Dissolving the shadows of Godhumanity to be the final point of the earth: indeed, we are beingmodest if we stop at that, and do not recognize at the funeral rites ofthe one-that-is-finished, a twilight of the gods and twilight of theworld.76Nietzsche was entertained by the fact that humans continue tolocate themselves at the meaning-center of the universe, just as theyonce believed that the sun, planets, and stars all revolved around theearth.As questionable as this self-centered orientation towards theuniverse might be, though, it does not imply that humans do notpartake in, and are not a respectable part of, the cosmos as a whole.Moreover, whether one can entirely distance oneself from allanthropomorphic ascriptions to the universe, and whether the veryenterprise of making such ascriptions is illegitimate, are debatableproposals.Since human beings are themselves part of the universe,and grow out of it, it stands to reason that some aspects of thehuman being must also be qualities of the whole.Nietzsche s belief that no distinctively human qualities can belegitimately projected on to the universe as a whole, then, reflects aworldview within which humans are not fundamentally at home inthe universe from which they were formed.His view resonates withthose versions of Christianity that recognize a strong divisionbetween the spirit and the flesh, and between mind and matter.Although he wanted to advance a view where people are realisticallyintegrated into and are considered to be an intrinsic part of theworld, Nietzsche did not want to attribute any anthropomorphicqualities to the world as it is in itself.This generated a tension withinhis view in terms of understanding the human being s place in theuniverse: people are to be integrated into the world, but the worldinto which they are to be integrated is regarded as an inhuman one.Nietzsche urged that people work to find themselves finally at homein the world, although the home in which they must dwell containsineradicably alien aspects.The situation is comparable to someonewho wants to love his or her parents unconditionally, even thoughthey have been mentally dislocated by the fact that their parentshave been mind-numbingly cruel if not criminal, at times, just asMother Nature can be cruel and immoral.67NIETZSCHENietzsche thus intended to avoid anthropomorphizing theuniverse as much as is possible, and in light of this desire, he statedthat the world is fundamentally a chaos, or a realm ruled by chance:The overall character of the world is, to the contrary, in all eternitychaos  not in the sense of any necessity that is missing, but anabsence of order, structuring, form, beauty, wisdom, and everythingelse named by our aesthetic, human constructions.77Nature, considered artistically, is no model.It exaggerates, it distorts,it leaves holes.Nature is chance.78And it is not always purpose, that is referred to as such, and even lessis everything will, that is called will! And, if you want to conclude: There is therefore only one realm, that of accidents and stupidity? so one should add: yes, perhaps there is only one realm, perhapsthere is neither will nor purposes, and we have only imagined it all.Those iron hands of necessity which shake the dice-box of chance,play their game forever: so some throws must come out of that,which appear to be similar, in each degree, to purposiveness and79rationality.As opposed to a global environment ruled securely by rigidconstancies and predictabilities  constancies that Nietzsche associ-ated with the shadows of God and with stagnation  his interpreta-tion of the world as a fiery chaos more effectively expresses alife-affirming outlook, owing to its consistency with change andcreativity.Since some of the central characteristics Nietzsche associ-ated with  life are growth, creativity, change, metamorphosis,expansion, and destruction, the interpretation of the universe ascontinually flickering and fluctuating is more consistent with thesevalues than is a completely rigid, deterministic, thoroughly rule-governed definition, where freedom and the development of newpossibilities are set at a relative minimum, or set within a kind ofconceptual cage.Since there is a perpetual uncertainty about whatthe nature of the universe happens to be, Nietzsche advocated thatwe adopt the interpretation that best serves the interests of life,whether or not it is provably true.He consequently celebratedchange, instability, danger, destruction, and challenge, to match hisaccentuation of life and creativity.68Dissolving the shadows of GodSuch an interpretation of the universe might present itself as farmore joyously thrilling than frightening, given Nietzsche s emphasison play, creativity, unpredictability, enticing and daring danger,growth, and dance.But there is a hard and icy side to this vision one that can turn a soft, sentimental, and rationality-seeking personinto stone, as can happen when a person looks squarely into anembittering moral abyss.For Nietzsche s vision recognizes noeternal justice at all.The criminals who get away with their crimessimply get away with their crimes.His universe is not concernedwith such matters.The nature of life: beyond good and evilNietzsche, at one point, referred to himself as an  experimentalbiologist, intending to express his interest in interpreting humanexperience through the perspective of life.This emphasis on theconcept of life was a common feature of his era: at the end of theeighteenth century, the prevailing conception of the natural orderas a giant clockwork became frustratingly uninspiring, and it wassoon replaced in the early nineteenth century by models that weregrounded on principles that were more fluid, open, and in accor-dance with the world of human beings than with the workings ofinanimate matter.During the nineteenth century, many philoso-phers began to formulate views more in accordance with  life, growth,  development, and  creativity, and Nietzsche was amongthem, although his particular view of life can be seen as noticeablytough-minded [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]